Page 90 of Knotting the Firefighters
I hook my calves behind his thighs, crossing my ankles and locking us together so tightly neither of us can tell where one ends and the other begins. He’s so deep I swear I can feel his heartbeat inside me, that desperate, rapid tattoo reverberating through every nerve in my pelvis. I cling to Calder like he’s my lifeline, like if I just hold on tight enough, I can keep the rest of the world at bay, keep the future from barrelling down on us with its inevitability and pain.
My nails score lines down the warm slope of his back, legs cinched around his hips, the friction of his stomach scraping over my clit with every infinitesimal movement. I want him to leave marks. I want to be tattooed on his skin so that even in some distant city, some sterile hotel room, or a new Omega’s bed, he’ll have to remember me.
We chase this slow, coiling crescendo, both of us refusing to let it crest too soon.
Calder’s got that raw, desperate look I’ve only seen a handful of times—his eyes glassy and shining, jaw clenched so hard I can feel the tremor in his cheek when I touch it. He tries to hold himself back, to ration his pleasure like he can make it last forever, but every time I shift beneath him, his composure frays a little more. He’s shaking, just barely, the way he always haswhen he’s this close to falling apart. I run my hands through his hair, over the sharp ridge of his shoulder blades, drinking in the scent of sweat and salt and the faintest echo of gasoline or pine—whatever it is that marks him as Calder, irreducible and unmistakable.
He’s so careful with me, even now. His hands cradle my face, his thumb flicking gently over the corner of my mouth, as if he’s memorizing the exact shape of my lips while they’re still his to touch. I see the agony in his eyes; I recognize it because it’s the same ache hollowing out my own chest. This is goodbye. This is our eulogy, written in sweat and skin and the kind of love that never shrivels but calcifies, sharp and aching forever.
We lose track of time, breathing each other in, hoarding seconds like misers.
Every movement is a negotiation, a give and take, the two of us straining to prolong the inevitable. Calder’s thrusts grow erratic, his rhythm faltering as he comes apart piece by piece.
I dig my heels into the small of his back, grinding him deeper, wanting to stretch these final moments until they become permanent by force of will alone. It’s a war of attrition, the two of us locked in battle against the end, and neither of us wants to fire the last shot.
He leans down, pressing his forehead to mine, and our sweat mingles where our skin meets. I can’t tell if the wetness on my cheeks is tears or just the aftermath of effort, but Calder licks it away like some animal ritual, tongue soft and reverent. His lips move against my ear, murmuring my name in a voice so broken it barely qualifies as sound.
We’re not even moving, hardly, just rocking together, bodies clenched so tight the line between pleasure and pain blurs and vanishes. I feel him everywhere: in the tremor of my thighs, the gasp he swallows from my mouth, the heat coiling in my gut like a dying star. I want to tell him to never stop, to burn thismemory into us so deeply that nothing could ever smother it. I want this to last hours, days, lifetimes. I want the world to end here, with the two of us suspended in amber, forever on the edge of breaking.
But it can’t. We can’t.
The moment overtakes us, the slow build finally tipping over into freefall. I clench around him, my breath catching in my throat, eyes rolling back as every nerve lights up in a chain reaction of pleasure and loss.
Calder’s arms go rigid, his entire body bowing with the force of his own climax, teeth clenched so hard I hear a tiny click as he bites back the sound.
For a second, we’re fused, every cell screaming with the effort of holding on, and then it’s over, the aftermath deafening in its silence.
When I come, it’s not fireworks or screaming or anything cinematic. It’s a silent, shuddering quake that leaves my limbs numb and my chest hollowed out, a release so complete the aftershocks are almost worse than the climax itself.
Calder follows instantly, biting back a groan, his body tensing and then collapsing as if the possession of me is both salvation and torture.
He doesn’t pull out right away.
Instead, he holds me, buries his face in my hair, and breathes me in, like he’s trying to memorize every molecule before it evaporates. I stroke the back of his neck, soothing, tracing the line of his spine, feeling his heartbeat gradually slow beneath my palm.
It’s in the fraction of a second before it happens —how the boundary between desire and devastation gets thinner every time, how every slow-motion moment is a countdown to the next rupture.
I feel it now: Calder’s knot, swelling at the base of him, pressing insistently, nature’s cruel joke to bind us in this rooted moment of one last time, even as all our plans unspool into entropy. There’s a flash of instinct, a warning that if I don’t pull away soon, I’ll be held here, locked to him until his body relents, until our chemical need softens into mere memory. Normally, that would terrify me. I’d be too proud or too scared to risk anything that permanent, because nothing in my life has ever lasted. I’ve made an art of leaving—of retreating first, before anyone can hurt me by staying.
But there’s nothing normal about this moment, nothing logical about the way my body aches for the finality of being kept.
It’s as if there’s a second person living inside my skin, a version of me who wants to taste ruin and hold onto it, no matter how sharp the aftertaste.
My hands, trembling, go to Calder’s neck—not to push him away, but to pull him closer, to bury my face in the salt-sweat of his collarbone, to memorize the stutter of his pulse against my lips. I want to mark him, own him, claim some piece that will outlast whatever goodbye we’re writing with our bodies right now. He senses it, the way only Calder ever has, and he slows—just for a heartbeat—letting me guide the rhythm, letting me decide whether we let the future in or keep it at the door a little longer.
There’s a physics to these things, and the final few seconds feel like a tunnel collapsing:the rush of blood in my ears, the way my muscles clench as if in protest, the way Calder’s breath goes sharp and ragged, hands scrambling for purchase on my hipbones.
It’s like we’re being sucked into a black hole, the outside world narrowing to a single point of contact, a single act of defiance against everything that’s coming for us. I can feel hisrestraint, the desperate calculus happening—whether to stay or to pull out, to risk the binding or play it safe.
I could tell him, right now, to stop. I could say the word and he would listen.But I don’t. I can’t.Instead, I arch my back, press my lips to the side of his throat, and let my teeth sink in—not enough to draw blood, but enough to leave a mark, enough to say mine in a language older than words.
That’s all it takes.
Calder’s grip tightens, as if he can sense me slipping away already. He bears down, thrusting once, twice, and then his knot catches at the entrance of my body, and the world goes blinding-white.
I feel every nerve ending light up, every ounce of resistance flicker and die, replaced by a molten, greedy pleasure that’s equal parts grief and euphoria. We’re fused—truly, biologically, inescapably fused—and it’s at once terrifying and perfect, the kind of pain that’s so sharp it comes out the other side as ecstasy.
The pressure is immense, a fullness that would be overwhelming if it wasn’t so precisely what I needed.
